The editorial of September 11 pours scorn, quite liberally, on Transport Malta over the project management adopted for the road works currently under way. By linking these to the freak and heavy storm of last week, it gives the impression that inconveniences caused by the weather can be blamed on alleged lack of project planning from our side.
The superlatives used in the same editorial describing the inclement weather (“spectacular and widespread”) clearly acknowledge that the prevailing conditions were worse than your average storm. Notwithstanding this, traffic returned to relative normality quite quickly considering how exceptionally rough conditions were.
The Times chose to refer in particular to roads that are still under construction, ignoring how well the recently completed roads – Council of Europe and Garibaldi Avenue, for example – handled the storm.
The excellent performance of these two roads, as well as the other TEN-T roads constructed over these last 10 years (from the Freeport terminal in Birżebbuġa all the way to San Lawrenz in Gozo) have been omitted from the editorial. It is not fair to focus attention on works in progress (which cause inconvenience in good weather, never mind bad) while omitting from the analysis the positive aspects that can be appreciated by all road users once the project is complete.
Ironically, a report on insurance claims following the rains, carried in the same issue, states: “According to Mr Brockdorff regular road maintenance helped mitigate the problems but houses were less prepared…”
On the issue of single lanes and possible difficulties in the new design of the Ċirkewwa-Marfa Road, we have submitted plans and obtained approval from the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (a process which included rigorous scrutiny and public consultation) and repeatedly provided replies (also to The Times) with technical explanations on the same issue and we find no difficulty in reminding that the “old road” did not have two lanes at any part of its location.
The road widths were not standard widths and at certain locations they gave the wrong impression that one could safely overtake when in fact the road profile in the vertical and horizontal sense was not adequate to do so. The absence of a central barrier between the lanes amplified the road safety issues instigated by the substandard lanes.
In fact, at the part of the road between the Marfa Palace and the junction to Armier, the road was widened from the previous one lane to two to allow for an overtaking lane due to the uphill gradient of the same part of road. At other locations, a shoulder was introduced to allow for emergency cases and in other parts the central barrier has openings to allow for controlled crossing of traffic in case of traffic stoppages.
Road widening was also controlled to limit the environmental impact on the countryside considering that the traffic volumes did not justify the further widening to obtain two lanes on the two carriageways. The current debate on Kappara (where traffic flows make a very strong case for taking up more land for road building) should illustrate how poorly justified a four-lane highway running through the Marfa peninsula would have been.
The central barrier, designed with the minimum width, was introduced to avoid the crossing of vehicles travelling in opposing lanes by haphazard overtaking and to protect motorists in case of incidents which may involve impact with street lighting poles.